Wellsburg-Steamboat Rock Community School Dist. v. Iowa Dept. of Educ., WELLSBURG-STEAMBOAT

• Decision Date: 23 November 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-1286,WELLSBURG-STEAMBOAT,93-1286
• Citation: 523 N.W.2d 749
• Parties: 95 Ed. Law Rep. 689 ROCK COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee, v. IOWA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 749

523 N.W.2d 749

95 Ed. Law Rep. 689

WELLSBURG-STEAMBOAT ROCK COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee, v. IOWA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Appellant.

No. 93-1286.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Nov. 23, 1994.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 20, 1994.

Bonnie J. Campbell, Atty. Gen., and Christie J. Scase, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Peter L.J. Pashler and Ivan T. Webber of Ahlers, Cooney, Dorweiler, Haynie, Smith & Allbee, P.C., Des Moines, for appellee.

Considered en banc.

CARTER, Justice.

The Iowa Department of Education (the agency) appeals from an order in a chapter 17A judicial review proceeding overturning its denial of supplemental weighted enrollment for school aid funding to the Wellsburg-Steamboat Rock Community School District. At issue is the interpretation of Iowa Code section 442.39A (1991). After considering the arguments of the parties, we affirm the order of the district court.

The Wellsburg Community School District and the Steamboat Rock Community School District began whole-grade sharing in the fall of the 1986-87 school year. As a result of so doing, these districts were made eligible for supplemental weighted enrollment school aid funding for the 1987-88, 1988-89, 1989-90, 1990-91, and 1991-92 school years pursuant to Iowa Code section 442.39(2). Prior to November 30, 1990, these two school districts initiated action to bring about a reorganized (merged) district. Following elections pursuant to Iowa Code sections 275.18 and 275.20 that proposal was approved in 1991, effective for the 1992-93 school year.

In the fall of 1991, following final approval of the reorganization, the merged district applied to the agency for the first of five additional years of supplemental weighted enrollment funding for which it claimed entitlement under Iowa Code section 442.39A. The agency denied that application. It ruled that application for the additional supplemental weighting authorized by section 442.39A must be made within the time that the individual districts remained eligible to apply for supplemental weighting under section 442.39(2). Because the agency found that further eligibility of the Wellsburg District and the Steamboat Rock District to apply for supplemental weighting under section 442.39(2) had expired, the application based on section 442.39A was deemed to be untimely. In reversing that determination, the district court found that the agency acted in violation of the controlling statutes. That is a basis for granting relief under the Iowa Administrative Procedure Act. Iowa Code § 17A.19(8)(a) (1991). Our interpretation of the applicable statutes leads to the same conclusion.

Two statutes provide the controlling considerations to be applied in deciding the issues with which we are presented. These statutes read, in applicable part, as follows:

Pupils attending classes in another school district or a community college, attending classes taught by a teacher who is employed jointly under section 280.15, or attending classes taught by a teacher who is employed by another school district, are assigned a weighting of one plus five-tenths, times the percent of the pupil's school day during which the pupil attends classes in another district or community college, attends classes taught by a teacher who is jointly employed under section 280.15, or attends classes taught by a teacher who is employed by another school district if the school budget review committee certifies to the department of management that the shared classes or teachers would otherwise not be implemented without the assignment of additional weighting. However, in lieu of the additional weighting of five-tenths, the school budget review committee shall assign an additional weighting of one-tenth times the percent of the pupil's school day in which a pupil attends classes in another district or a community college, attends classes taught by a teacher who is employed jointly under section 280.15, or attends classes taught by a teacher who is employed by another district.... The additional weighting of one-tenth shall be assigned by the school budget review committee to a district for a maximum of five years. If the school district reorganizes during that five-year period, the assignment of the additional weighting shall be transferred to the reorganized district until the expiration of the five-year period.

Iowa Code § 422.39(2) (1991).

In determining weighted enrollment under section 442.4, if the board of directors of a school district has approved a contract for sharing under section 442.39, subsection 2 or 4, and the school district initiated an action prior to November 30, 1990, to bring about a reorganization, the reorganized school district shall include, for a period of five years following the effective date of the reorganization, additional pupils added by the application of the supplementary weighting plan, equal to the pupils added by the application of the supplementary weighting plan in the year preceding the reorganization. However, the weighting shall be reduced by the supplementary weighting added for a pupil whose residency is not within the reorganized district. For purposes of this section, a reorganized district is one in which the reorganization was approved in an election pursuant to sections 275.18 and 275.20 and takes effect on or after July 1, 1986.

Iowa Code § 442.39A (1991).

The agency's attempt to sustain its decision and reverse that of the district court is based on a single premise. That premise is that the additional weighted formula funding authorized under section 442.39A is an incentive to promote school reorganizations. That incentive is only effective, the agency urges, if additional supplemental weighting formula eligibility is conditioned on completing the reorganization within a fixed time. We have no quarrel with these suggestions and agree that the legislature conditioned supplemental weighting under section 442.39A upon reorganization efforts being initiated within a prescribed period of time. As did the district court, however, we conclude that the two school districts involved in this proceeding did take action within the time established by section 442.39A to bring about a reorganization.

The agency's denial of the merged district's application under section 442.39A was based on its finding that the situation of the merged district did not fit within the statutory method for calculating weighted enrollment under section 442.39A. The statute provides that, in determining the extent of weighted enrollment, the reorganized district shall include for a period of five years following the effective date of the reorganization "additional pupils ... equal to the pupils added by the application of the supplementary weighting plan in the year preceding the reorganization." Although the two districts involved in the present reorganization each received their fifth and final year of weighted school aid under section 442.39(2) during the school year preceding the reorganization (1991-92), application for that aid was made during the prior school year (1990-91). The administrative determination of pupils to be added under the formula also took place during the 1990-91 school year.

The agency contends that pupils added by the application of section 442.39(2) are added at the time that administrative determination of the formula weighting is finalized. It urges that the last year that occurred was the 1990-91 school year, and there were no pupils added during the year preceding the reorganization. That circumstance, the agency suggests, makes the prescribed basis for granting additional supplemental weighting under section 442.39A nonexistent.

We do not interpret the language on which the agency relies as defeating the reorganized district's eligibility for additional years of supplemental weighting under section 442.39A. Our reading of that statute suggests that any school districts that were engaged in whole-grade sharing and acted to initiate reorganization procedures prior to November 30, 1990, were eligible for additional supplemental weighting. The agency concedes that the Wellsburg District and the Steamboat Rock District initiated action to effect a reorganized district prior to November 30, 1990.

In a 1990 amendment to section 442.39A, the legislature extended the time for qualifying for the benefits that statute confers. At the same time, the legislature abandoned the requirement that reorganization must be completed within a prescribed time in order for the reorganized district to obtain additional supplemental weighting. It instead elected to condition this eligibility on the initiation of school reorganization procedures before November 30, 1990. 1990 Iowa Acts ch. 1217, § 4.

Because of the time required to complete the reorganization, school districts meeting the November 30, 1990 deadline for initiating reorganization procedures could experience a time gap of one school year between the final year of supplemental weighting under section 442.39(2) and the first year of supplemental weighting under section 442.39A. If, for example, the election required is not held by the prior November 30, there is a one-year delay in the effective date of the reorganization. Iowa Code § 275.24 (1991). In interpreting statutes, the ultimate goal is to ascertain and give effect to the intention of the legislature. Marian Health Ctr. v. Cooks, 451 N.W.2d 846, 847 (Iowa 1989) (We are to presume that the entire statute is intended to be effective and that a reasonable result is intended.). We do not believe that the legislature chose to grant additional time to qualify for supplemental weighting under section 442.39A and at the same time...